


Damn the Torpedoes; Full Speed Ahead

by SovaySovay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, First Kiss, Inspired by a Movie, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 10:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5741014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SovaySovay/pseuds/SovaySovay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the small hours of a perfect July night in 1943, two men round a corner on their walk home from a party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damn the Torpedoes; Full Speed Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> I spend too much time watching classic movies. I saw a particular scene in 1943's The More The Merrier and started rewriting it with Cas and Dean as an exercise, and then it turned into an actual thing that I enjoyed writing. I highly recommend that you watch the clip before reading this, it'll make a lot more sense! Here's the link to it: https://youtu.be/12LeV-eRrdc

The street was dark, as it was long after midnight on a perfect summer evening. The air was temperate, just enough of a breeze moving through the night to keep each person moving comfortably along on their way to or from somewhere, something, someone. If you had been on this particular street, you might have thought that the city was asleep, so few people stood on the sidewalk or drove by in their cars. Of course, this was not really the case; at one-thirty in the morning on the seventeenth of July, 1943, the city was as alive as any well-populated city can be on a Friday night. It was only this street, and streets like it, that were devoid of the boisterous gangs of college students or office workers letting off the steam of the week.

It was onto this particular street, at this particular hour of the night, that a conversation moved between two men as one walked the other home. This was merely a gallant gesture of one of the men: they shared an apartment, after all, but the third roommate was still at the party they had left a half hour ago, and he had the car, so they had to walk. Neither could honestly say why they had chosen to leave without him, or why they hadn’t taken the car, or why it seemed as though one might disappear at any second. They walked lazily and comfortably with each other, though the shorter of the two seemed to be somehow drawn away from the other, sometimes turning and walking away, or even walking backwards, unsure of how to remain close to the taller man, whose green eyes remained trained on his companion as he advanced steadily and sedately.

“Who’s we?” inquired the shorter man, who came around the corner with his back to the street, but turned to walk in step with his friend, and then away again, moving apart as the taller, fair-haired man’s hand brushed his back. A slightly worn trench coat hung loosely from Castiel’s right shoulder.

“Oh, my mother and my father, my brother,” Dean replied easily, stopping short to avoid running into Cas, who had halted in surprise at seeing a couple sequestered in a dark corner of the street. He blinked once or twice, then continued walking, though his head turned almost involuntarily to glance at them again. Dean’s hand came to the small of Cas’ back again, who looked at him quickly.

“Oh,” he said.

“And on Sundays,” Dean continued, “we generally go down to the beach.” Cas turned to glance at a flowerbed by the sidewalk, his coat sliding entirely off his shoulders. Dean caught it and folded it over his arm.

“Oh.” Cas repeated. Though it had now been almost three-quarters of an hour since they had left the party, the drinks he had had were affecting him still. He swayed slightly as he walked. “What beach?”

“Hm?” Dean said, as though he had been thinking. In fact, he had been distracted by dark hair and blue eyes. “An Atlantic Ocean beach.” He gingerly placed the coat back on Cas’ shoulders. They passed another couple, sitting on the steps that led to an apartment building. Dean stared at them as he and Cas walked by, at the simplicity with which they held each other. Had Cas turned around for a moment, he might have seen the flicker of jealousy in Dean’s eyes.

But he did not, and instead nodded slightly and said “Oh” again.

“Who goes?” he asked.

“The whole gang,” Dean replied evasively, still half-glancing at the couple on the stairs. Part of him was hoping Cas wouldn’t press the issue; it had been a genuinely good evening, the first he’d had in a very long time, and it somehow seemed to be the last for a long while to come, too. But Castiel Novak was persistent when sober, and stubborn when buzzed.

“Like who?” Cas turned in a small circle, letting the coat fall back off and into Dean’s hands. It did not go unnoticed that Dean’s hand, which had remained underneath the coat and on Cas’ shoulder, stayed where it was as he revolved, running up the side of his neck and brushing his cheek.

“Oh, like Bobby, and Ellen, Charlie...” Dean trailed off, trying not to discuss his family on a night like tonight. It was too good to be marred with that gargantuan can of worms. Forget worms-- boa constrictors.

Cas hesitated, his hands pulling at each other for a moment before he glanced back at Dean, who placed the coat back on his shoulders.

“Well, don’t you ever go with any girl?” he asked, a little too brightly.

“Of course,” Dean said.

“Well, who?” Cas shrugged out of the coat again, and Dean attempted to put it back.

“There’s Tessa.” Dean finally succeeded in getting the coat to stay on Cas, who looked at him sharply.

“Is she your girl?” Cas’ voice was light-hearted, but there was a flintiness in his eyes that Dean didn’t quite manage to catch. On a whim, he enclosed one of Cas’ hands in both his own.

“I just go with her.”

“Long time?”

“No, just-- just a girl I know.” They passed yet another couple, but neither Dean nor Castiel lifted an eye to glance at them.

“So she’s not your girl, then,” Cas said quietly, almost to himself, and smiled. Dean wasn’t all that used to Cas’ smile. Generally he was so preoccupied with “the weight of the world”, as he referred to his work, he was too busy to smile much. Dean had seen Cas smile more this evening than he had in the few years they had known each other, and if he had stopped to think about it, perhaps that was what had made this night so much better than many others.

“No,” Dean repeated, “I just go with her.” Here, he did look back at the couple under the tree, a spike of envy pressing against his lungs.

“Is she attractive?” Cas looked directly at Dean, who still stared behind them. Cas willed him to deny it outright, but Dean responded absentmindedly:

“I guess so.”

“Well, who did you go with before that?” Dean had drawn Cas’ hand down until their arms were both extended, fingers interlocking. Cas could feel Dean’s other hand on his shoulder, and he pulled his coat off again. If he had let himself think clearly about it, he did not do that solely because the mid-July weather was warm enough to not wear it.

“Oh, Lisa.” Cas pulled his hand out of Dean’s grasp. He turned around to face Dean, and they stopped like that, staring at each other, Dean’s hands resting lightly on Cas’ arms.

“Uh--” Cas lost his train of thought, caught off-guard by the forest green of Dean’s eyes. “Um-- how long?”

“A couple of months,” Dean replied. He was, to say the least, displeased to be talking about past relationships when there was a maximum of four inches of space between their noses. However, Cas had appeased and complied with every whim of Dean's for almost three years now, and Dean could only return the favor.

“What happened?” Cas asked, his eyes tracing the features of Dean’s face, his eyes, his lips. Almost against his will, he moved forward slightly.

“She wanted to get married.”

“Well, what happened?” Cas, of course, knew that Dean Winchester was as single as he was, but there was no mistaking the twinge of panic in his voice at that, and he cursed himself for letting it out. Dean moved closer. There were three inches between their eyes.

“She got married,” Dean responded.

“Who did you go with before that?” Cas said, swaying slightly to the side. Dean’s arm held him upright, and he leaned in even closer. Two inches.

“Oh, just the girls from the town, I think.”

“And what happened to them?” One inch.

“I stopped going with them.” Cas turned suddenly, walking away from Dean. For some reason, he had thought that maybe Dean had only gone with his family, and not with a long string of girls he seemed to barely remember. Why he felt so nervous at Dean's fickleness, he couldn't say: he had known for a while that his friend had never stopped too long in one place or with one person, and he had never really minded before, so why should it matter to him just now?

“Are you...” Cas turned again to look at Dean, a few feet away now, realizing with a slight jolt that they were at the steps to their apartment. Sam would probably be leaving the party soon, would be arriving in the car at any moment. “...afraid to settle down, or something?”

“No.” Dean walked slowly towards him, gently circling an arm around Cas’ shoulders and laying a hand on his side. “But, well, I... I don’t want to get involved.” He pulled Cas with him down onto the steps as though they were weightless. Cas edged slightly away from him, but not too far, one hand pushing Dean back a little as a stranger walked past, eyeing them warily. Cas’ eyes flickered around the street, looking everywhere but at Dean. Truth be told, he was afraid that whatever might be apparent on Dean’s face would be nowhere near what Cas himself could give away.

“Well, uh,” Cas muttered, “they _say_ , that’s what happens to a man when he... settles down.” Dean folded Cas’ coat in his lap, looking slightly injured.

“Yeah, well, settling down is okay if you want to be,” Dean said noncommittally, placing the folded coat on Cas’ knees and taking his hand again. He glanced at Cas, hoping that his friend would meet his eyes so he could see what he meant. _If_ you _want to be, Cas_. _If_ you _wanted to, I would_.

He and his brother had roamed across the country for years and years, and the only reason that they had settled here for the past three years was so that Sam could go to college locally. But Dean could see it, and he had seen it growing in Cas’ eyes for almost two years, since he got comfortable in this city: the desire to stop running, to _settle down_ , maybe even to find someone to share a life with. He had never mentioned it, but Dean had seen it, and it terrified him.

“I expect to be very happy,” Cas said, almost like he was trying to convince himself. Dean looked down, studied Cas’ hand in his.

“You do?”

“Yes.” Dean had suspected for some time now that Cas had met someone, maybe someone who he could see a future with.

“I consider myself a very lucky man,” Cas said. Dean raised his head to look at him again.

“How’s that?”

Cas lifted up his hand a little bit and stared at it. It was shaking slightly, and he prayed it wasn’t obvious that he was only looking at it to avoid looking at Dean.

“Having such a clear plan for the future,” he said carefully.

“Oh, yeah.” Dean replied, his voice cold. Cas glanced at him, surprised. When had he last heard Dean speak so sharply to him? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t _think_. Dean’s hand on his shoulder drew him closer. “A perfect plan to finish school at the top of your class and follow your brothers into the family business.”

“Oh, that’s not such a bad thing,” Cas said, trying not to think about Dean’s left hand holding Cas’ fingers, or his right hand on Cas’ arm.

Dean laughed, and a shiver raced up Cas’ spine. “Of course not,” Dean said.

“Um, especially if, uh, you plan everything to the last detail like I’ve tri-- tried to do over the last year or so, and I think if I work hard and listen to the rest of my family, I could do a lot of good at the company.”

“Sure.”

“I’m planning very carefully.”

“Yeah, that’s the way to do, all right.”

“Oh, take the apartment.” Cas held out his hand to look at it again, and this time Dean followed his gaze, staring at it. “Don’t you think it’s nice, for three people of very limited means?”

“Sure,” Dean said. He took Cas’ outstretched hand.

“Well, I--” Cas froze as Dean kissed the back of his hand gently. His heart beat rapidly, and every thought of leaving the apartment and finding his own home vanished from his mind. In fact, he couldn’t think of anything except the word _Dean_ until Dean had released his hand and was only staring at it.

“I thought,” Cas practically squeaked, “that it would be better to get through college and have a stable career, then I could really start to think about what I--” Dean’s hand brushed Cas’ shoulder and Cas glanced at it, trying to retain his train of thought. “--I really need to get done in my personal life, but I suppose that’s going to be easy enough, I don’t need much.”

Dean nodded. “Sure.”

“I found a-- a nice house on the edge of the city.” Dean’s hands held onto Cas’ arms, and Cas made a sort of half-hearted attempt to remove them. It was altogether too dangerous, to have Dean be this close. “For after everything’s over, of course.”

“Of course,” Dean repeated, one hand looping around Cas’ waist. Cas sighed, half exasperation, half exultation.

“All of us are so busy now,” he said, and he knew how cold and flat he must sound, but if he let himself talk about anything besides work and the future, he might talk about the present, and then he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from saying everything. “And I just don’t have time to _think_ of it, even.”

“Right,” Dean replied. “I understand that.”

“I mean, just last week one evening, my brothers had a dinner conference with some--” Dean’s lips touched the side of Cas’ neck, and it was all over. “--someone or other who...” Cas’ voice trailed away and his eyes closed, arching gently towards Dean, whose kisses trailed down from his neck to his shoulder before he looked at Cas again, green eyes shining.

Cas’ eyes opened, but he couldn’t look at Dean. He blinked rapidly several times. “Some business executive who could really help us expand the business.”

“You must have an important family,” Dean said softly, and Cas finally met his gaze. There was only warmth there, and it pulled his heart towards Dean with more power than he thought was possible. He looked away quickly.

“Yes, and so fortunate, you know? My father was never an ambitious man, but he somehow was lucky enough to get his hands on this building, and my brothers have really turned it into something profitable, and I think it could turn into a very lucrative business.”

“Is that so?”

“They’re good people, and they’re very protective of me--”

“I know.” They were completely in each other’s arms now, and one of Dean’s hands cradled the side of Cas’ face, Cas’ fingers wrapped in Dean’s shirt.

“Well, it’s just, that’s how people act in cities like these, a man gets to... appreciate more... mature--” and Dean kissed him. It lasted six seconds at the most, but it felt like an eon to both of them. When they broke apart, Cas felt like a tear had been made in his soul that could only be fixed if that hadn’t been the only time, if that could just happen again. He looked away for a second, said something, anything (“Oh, God”) to ground himself, maybe remind himself that this was the real world and that he really should not be kissing his best friend, before he turned back to Dean, framed his face with his hands, and kissed him again.

It was too much, too much, far too much, more than he deserved. The kiss lasted longer this time, Dean’s fingers in Cas’ hair and Cas holding onto Dean for dear life. It ended, and Cas struggled in vain for something to say.

“I’d better go,” he said lamely, and they both stood up quickly. Cas climbed the stairs in a hurry, pausing to mutter “Good night, Dean”, to which Dean responded with a gentle “Good night, Cas”. Cas hurried inside, glancing back out one last time at the man who stood at the bottom of the steps. Dean turned and started to walk away, his heart soaring. He made it five steps before he stopped. The door opened and Cas looked out cautiously.

“I almost forgot where I lived,” Dean said.

The door opened wider, and Dean stepped inside.

By the time Sam got home on July 17th, the sun was starting to rise. The anonymous couples had all vanished from the street, and the ideal temperature of the night was gone, replaced by one much too high. On the couch in the apartment, Dean rested with his feet on a footstool. Cas was asleep, his chin on Dean’s chest and his arms around his waist. They were, at last, content.


End file.
